Safe Sex and the Debate over Condoms on Campus in the 1980s: Sperm Busters at Harvard and Protection Connection at the University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

During the 1980s, college students in the United States helped to destigmatize the distribution and use of condoms. They shifted their aims from preventing unwanted pregnancy to stopping the spread of sexually transmitted infections including the newly identified acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Two student-led initiatives to deliver condoms after hours at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the University of Texas at Austin show regional and temporal differences in sexual mores as awareness of AIDS increased. These male students adopted a non-pharmaceutical intervention to prevent pregnancy and disease in the context of increased marketing of Trojan® brand condoms. Interviews with co-founders reveal how the students grappled with backlash from family members and campus administrators less enthusiastic about their popularization of condoms. Co-founders described how media attention affected their college experiences and how condom companies changed campus culture. Overall, large non-pharmaceutical companies such as Trojan® and small condom-resellers such as those at Harvard and the University of Texas at Austin reshaped cultural norms around safe sex as awareness of AIDS grew between 1985 and 1987.